The second obstacle: cognitive overload during the fight or flight response. When trying to deceive someone, liars think about many things at once. We have to monitor verbal and non-verbal cues, remember what they have already said and what they haven’t said before, make sure that the story they have created sounds logical and believable.
In addition, liars have to constantly keep in mind what words, gestures or facial expressions might give them away. In other words, when a person tells a lie, his brain is completely turned on. Cognitive overload makes it difficult to think and speak, which makes it harder to lie successfully, explains John Schafer.
The first tip is that in order to lie more effectively, you need to recognize and recognize the very beginning of the fight or flight response and make efforts to eliminate or hide its manifestations. This will provide additional resources for convincing deception.
Cognitive load
Cognitive load occurs when processes such as thinking, attention, and memory are involved. That is, a person is overexerted mentally. But how can you understand during a conversation that the other person is lying? Psychologists have proven that lying is much more difficult than telling the truth. The brain becomes tense and the person becomes overly nervous.
Honesty - self-acceptance
Sigmund Freud argued that the need to tell the truth is very strong in people. The reason for this is that a person wants to be understood by others. But often he himself does not understand and does not accept himself. He puts on one mask, exchanges it for another, but cannot even imagine that he can live without them.
The better a person understands himself, the more difficult it is for him to lie to himself and others.
People lie to appear in a favorable light to others, but their inner voice tells them that the meaning of our existence lies in something completely different. The better a person understands and accepts himself, the more honest he becomes.
Good liars are sociable people
In terms of their ability to tell lies, extroverts have an inherent advantage over introverts because they appear more confident and pleasant to others. Self-confidence and the ability to please “disarm” suspicion. And external attractiveness and the ability to communicate increase the chances of any deceiver. People tend to notice inconsistencies much less and believe more in the innocence of those they like.
The third tip: if you are an introvert, observe extroverts, their facial expressions and behavior in order to increase your chances of becoming a good liar.
White lie
However, there are situations in life when lying is necessary. Sometimes you have to tell a lie so as not to offend a person. If a friend's dress, in our opinion, is tasteless, most often we will praise it. I don’t want to spoil a person’s mood, and besides, it’s his choice that needs to be respected.
But there are situations when the truth can hurt a person or harm him. Before telling a person about a serious illness or betrayal, you need to think ten times whether the truth will be too heavy a blow for him.
How to start telling the truth and not be afraid of it?
For a person to realize the need to always be truthful, an undeniable motivation is needed.
He must think about how many friends have been lost due to lies, how many times has his personal authority suffered due to untruths? For believers, religious motives may play a role, according to which lying is a sin. To start telling the truth, you must learn to control yourself. In those moments when you want to tell a little lie or slightly embellish reality, you just need to tell the truth. Very often the impression it makes depends on how it is presented.
The easiest way to get rid of everyday lies is that they are harmless and pose no threat. Very often, in response to any message from their interlocutor, people pretend that they are already familiar with this information. No less often, they begin to embellish and make up things. We remind you once again that knowing this habit, it is important to be able to control yourself.
To avoid the temptation to tell a big lie, use the “rule of curiosity” - pretend to be interested and ask your interlocutor to tell you more about this fact.
The biggest lie is the misunderstood truth. William Jones
It is much more difficult when the lie is vital to someone. For example, an employee who has forgotten about an important assignment from his manager really wants to lie that he did not complete the task because he was sick. But this is not true and can be discovered. Therefore, in this case it is better to do the following:
- honestly admit your mistake as soon as you remember the forgotten assignment;
- fully admit your guilt and express your readiness to improve;
- look your boss in the eye;
- watch the intonation of your voice - it should be guilty, but confident.
It often happens that the hostility of superiors, like any other person, is neutralized by just one honest confession and sincere repentance.
Watch the timbre
The brain is terribly honest, it doesn’t like to lie, it makes it upset. For the body, lying is excessive stress. Therefore, both men and women speak in a higher voice than usual when lying - this is an unconscious reaction to stress. We always squeak when we are nervous. So let the jazz depth and velvet into your voice, otherwise they will burn you.
Orthodox Life
If I were faced with the task of formulating in one phrase the main principle of normal human communication, I would say: “Be afraid of being right.”
Of course, on the one hand, it is important for a person to feel that he is right. Then he is convincing and interesting. Honest, after all. At the same time, the absence of such a feeling is often the cause of uncertainty. Everyone knows that an insecure and indecisive person (in other words, a mumbler) is more annoying than anyone else.
However, there is another side. And it is distinguished by its considerable ugliness. Since the consciousness of one’s own rightness instills in a person, in addition to confidence, also aplomb, a sense of superiority and arrogance. The one who is right often allows himself to be rude, is cruel, cynical and ruthless. Let us take a close look at our sins, misdeeds and bad deeds. For which of them does your conscience torment you the most? Which ended in the most dramatic conflicts? Which ones entailed deep grievances and ultimately provoked a quarrel and even hostility? Right. Those in which we were absolutely sure that we were right. The feeling of being right gives a free hand, sanctions extremes, justifies sin. Therefore, it is necessary to treat it with the same caution as any other feeling, understanding that even the best in us is not alien to depravity.
And this caution should not begin in the process of a dispute or conflict. It’s too late to remember about it in the heat of a quarrel or in the heat of a discussion. To ensure that the feeling of being right does not spoil life for us or our neighbors, we should learn to at least tell the truth without harm to our neighbors or harm to ourselves.
Let's start with the fact that not every truth is actually true. The truth in its pure form is always one - this is the truth of God. There are no less human truths in the world than there are people. It is obvious that everyone believes in his own truth and in this regard he is completely honest with himself. However, it is equally obvious that a single personal truth remains true only for the one who believes it. From others the demand is different. What do I care about someone else's truth when I have my own? And in the end, what is the use of inflating, as Khodasevich wrote, “petty truths an empty prue”?
Hence the rule: remember that what I consider to be true constitutes my, so to speak, personal truth. It may actually be true, at least in my eyes. There may be “a penny’s worth of truth” in it. But regardless of this, my personal truth is, as a rule, not needed or interesting to my neighbor. So why say it? If someone is interested in our truth, it’s not a sin to tell about it, but if they don’t ask, then it’s quite possible to do without voicing it.
However, often simple human truth turns out to be objective. Does this mean that it must be said? Well, it may very well be what is needed. But before this, it would be useful to check the truthfulness of yourself. To begin with, let us note that doubts rarely arise about pleasant and easy truth: such truth does not lead to offense or conflict, and if a person is not disgusting by nature and, as a result, is not prone to thoughts like “I won’t praise, so as not to become proud.” “or the habit of not noticing the good and concentrating on the bad, then it will not be difficult for him to tell his neighbor the positive truth.
So, anyone who wants to tell the truth to another must also be truthful. You have probably heard such complaints more than once as “I reprimanded him, but he...”, “I want good for them, but they...”, “I tell her: no one will tell you the truth except me, and she ..." These and similar phrases are usually used to complain about how a person reacts to criticism. Fairly, I must say, he reacts. After all, if we do not take into account situations where a boss criticizes a subordinate, a master criticizes a student, and a teacher criticizes a student, then we will come to the conclusion that criticism, even if fair, is usually inclined to those people who have no moral right to they don’t have it and criticize it only “with the best intentions.” What are these motives? To figure it out, let's ask ourselves, do we want to criticize people we sincerely treat well? Or those we love? For example, it is extremely difficult for me to imagine a normal husband criticizing his beloved wife. Or it’s also hard for me to imagine criticism between friends. Will normal parents be critical of their child? No, everyone, of course, is not without vice. But the shortcomings of spouses in normal families are covered by love, the bad actions of children are corrected by education, and for friendship it is completely normal to accept a person as he is. Criticism is always implicated in passion. On anger, on anger, on envy, on pride... Therefore, the desire to criticize would be more correctly called the desire to say nasty things. And fair criticism will differ from unfair criticism in only one way: there will be no lies in it. However, a lie is not necessary, because the truth can be evil, and justice can be merciless. In the end, it is much more convenient for an evil, cruel person to use the truth, since it gives his criticism the appearance of objectivity and justifies it in his own eyes.
This is the truth. Only now it concerns not our neighbor, to whom we wanted to tell the truth, but ourselves. Our intentions and methods. Does anyone still see a moral right to tell someone the unpleasant truth?
So what now, you ask? Not telling the truth? Lie? Be a hypocrite? In no case. A Christian must be truthful and honest. Only first - with yourself and in relation to yourself. And in life we need to learn to tell the truth first of all when a lie can bring us benefit or cover up our sin. Or when the truth can prevent slander, when through the truth you can protect the weak and defenseless, prevent meanness and prevent injustice from happening. In general, whenever the truth is difficult and requires courage, when the end result of the truth is righteousness, and not a smug sense of one’s own rightness.
Archpriest Vladimir Puchkov
Use distraction and switching
A true master of deception, like the Spanish matador, draws his sword only at the decisive moment and delivers only one blow. The rest of the time, he skillfully distracts the victim's attention with the help of skillful movements of his red cloak. The art of lying uses similar techniques, and sometimes skillfully switching the interlocutor’s attention to another object or changing the topic of conversation eliminates the need to lie altogether. Think over your line of behavior in advance in such a way that you don’t have to tell a lie at all. Just be careful not to overdo it, because incompetent use of a muleta can cost the matador his life!
Masked man
If we are to tell ourselves the truth, then any of us must admit: “I am lying.” Moreover, we begin to change the truth from childhood, gradually learning the rules of behavior from our elders.
“Socialization does not leave us freedom of choice,” reflects client-centered psychotherapist Alexander Orlov. “For example, parents tell their son that boys don’t cry. No tears, no snot! And he learns to hide his true feelings. So we put on one mask after another, and we can no longer distinguish faces behind them. In this sense, we are all participants in one giant masquerade.”
We are afraid to open up, to show ourselves as we really are. After all, by taking off the mask, opening up to another, we take risks because we become vulnerable. In response, we may receive a painful blow, we may not be understood, judged, or rejected. Moreover, we - to one degree or another - hide the truth about our feelings and desires, even from ourselves. And this is another mask - so to speak, “for internal use.” Sometimes it helps us come to terms with ourselves, explains clinical psychologist and ethologist Boris Cyrulnik: “Self-deception is simply necessary for us to protect our self-esteem in spite of circumstances. At the same time, constantly staying in the world of dreams deprives us of the ability to overcome life’s obstacles.”
Unexpected questions
Of course, a person can be well prepared for a lie and think through his answers in advance. Therefore, deliberate lies are quite difficult to detect. However, if a person has prepared well and thought through the answers, then it is worth asking completely unexpected questions. He who tells the truth will find his bearings and consistently move the story forward. Whoever lies will not be able to tie ends meet.
Good liars are quick thinkers
The art of deception requires the ability to think quickly. By telling a lie, a person often faces unexpected questions, and his answer determines whether he will be believed or not. The speaker may be given away by an inappropriate pause or an unconscious touch to the face.
The fourth tip: the ability to think quickly can be trained. Stand in front of a large, full-length mirror and tell a lie, then ask yourself an unexpected question and see how you answer. Notice verbal and nonverbal cues and other possible clues. To imagine how the person to whom you are going to lie will feel, say: “My little mirror, tell me, who does not know the word of a lie, who in the world is more honest, sincere and faithful?”
“As you can see,” Shafer concludes, “becoming a good liar is possible if you practice simple techniques and avoid displaying typical signs of deception. Your life can be more comfortable without those embarrassing moments when you are caught lying." “Of course, sometimes your conscience will wake up and you will spend many sleepless nights - but is this a big price to pay for becoming a real consummate liar?” - he asks sarcastically.
Never make excuses or confess
If you are suspected of lying, then the worst thing you can do is to start inventing more and more lies to justify yourself. If the building is shaking, then it is necessary to escape from it, and not urgently complete new floors. Therefore, respond to all accusations with proud, offended silence or switching to another topic.
As for “voluntary surrender,” this is tantamount to a direct shot in the temple. There are often situations when the truth is equally harmful for both sides and the party accusing you, just like you, despite all the harassment, would not want to hear it. Never give up, even when your back is against the wall. Stand your ground against logic, evidence and common sense.
Good liars are themselves
Under normal circumstances, human behavior remains fairly constant and predictable. Internal limitations determine which actions are characteristic of him and which are not. People are often caught lying precisely because they say or do things that are out of character for them. Parents expose their children when they change their behavioral patterns in an attempt to deceive. Husbands and wives determine lies by the “strange” actions of their partners. Unusual behavior gives rise to suspicion.
Second tip: in order to reduce the chances of being caught in a lie, you need to remain yourself. Speak and behave as you always have. This is especially important if you are deceiving those who know you well. They may quickly sense that you are out of the norm.
